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JAMESTOWN – Jamestown Public School released its reopening plan for the upcoming semester on Friday.
The plan addresses health and safety, facilities, child nutrition, transportation, social and emotional well-being, school operations, teaching, learning and technology, specialized instruction and communications.
“As you may know, since March, the JPS community has stood together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic by observing social distancing and spending a lot of time at home,” said JPS Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker in a statment. “We are just over a month away from the beginning of the new school year. I have often heard in my travels around town that you have many questions and concerns about how we will reopen our buildings safely in light of COVID-19. As I’m sure you can imagine, the traditional school year and past routines have changed. However, our commitment to keeping our students and staff safe has not. That remains our top priority, followed closely by our commitment to devise a plan that also provides equitable academic opportunities for all.”
School officials say the reopening plan is based on the intensive work of the JPS Reopening Committee composed of more than more than 50 staff, teachers, district partners, and union representatives along with feedback from students, staff and parents.
“While we have drafted this plan and continue to refine the details, there continue to be changes in guidelines and requirements,” said Dr. Whitaker. “As we continue our work, we need your input. We understand that there are many situations and there are many different needs such as childcare or medically vulnerable family members. We need your feedback to help us to refine our plan so that it is best suited to our community needs. We have created a survey at www.jpsny.org/reopeningsurvey. This survey will be open through Friday, August 7th for students, families and staff to contribute. Please take the time to complete this important survey in order to help us craft the best plan for our children. We are eager to review and use your feedback to make modifications to our reopening plan.”
The committee examined many possible scenarios for starting the new school year safely, operationally and academically, under the New York State and CDC COVID-19 guidelines and recommendations.
School officials say they will submit the plan to the New York State Education Department. The full plan is posted below:
[pdf-embedder url=”http://new.wnynewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/JPS-Reopening-Plan-FINAL-.pdf” title=”JPS Reopening Plan FINAL”]
A “reader-friendly” version of the plan, along with a video summary and FAQs are also posted on the school’s website.
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